Squatting is a normal part of many cultures that do not experience hip and back problems, so why don’t we?

There are many cultures that do more squatting than sitting.  Many of these cultures have fewer instances of bad hips or knees or back problems.

When people think of squatting, they often think of going to the gym, holding a weight and performing a squat.   In the rest of the world, people regularly squat instead of bending over.

Squatting is thought to help keep the hips and knees healthier by lubricating these joints and also improving their flexibility. Babies regularly squat and in many cultures, people squat when praying, eating and doing other activities.

We can learn something from some of these other cultures about squatting.  I found this interesting article that discusses how the west got away from squatting which is normal in many other cultures.

Check out the article below

The Forgotten Art of Squatting Is a Revelation for Bodies Ruined by Sitting

In much of the world, squatting is as normal a part of life as sitting in a chair.
Quartz
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Rosie Spinks

Sentences that start with the phrase “A guru once told me…” are, more often than not, eye-roll-inducing. But recently, while resting in malasana, or a deep squat, in an East London yoga class, I was struck by the second half of the instructor’s sentence: “A guru once told me that the problem with the West is they don’t squat.”

This is plainly true. In much of the developed world, resting is synonymous with sitting. We sit in desk chairs, eat from dining chairs, commute seated in cars or on trains, and then come home to watch Netflix from comfy couches. With brief respites for walking from one chair to another, or short intervals for frenzied exercise, we spend our days mostly sitting. This devotion to placing our backsides in chairs makes us an outlier, both globally and historically. In the past half century, epidemiologists have been forced to shift how they study movement patterns. In modern times, the sheer amount of sitting we do is a separate problem from the amount of exercise we get.

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